The French Government is immensely increasing its Navy, that increase
being the striking. feature in the budget of 1847;. and at, the same tithe a leading Ministerial organ in Paris is lecturing the Opposition fur raising cries against that England which has• given such sincere and cordial proofs of good-will towards France.
" A Ministry, almost formed," says the Journal des Dibats, "is upset by the sole fear that one of its members should cause disquiet to opinion in France, by reawakening recollections of 1840. England has been more susceptible for ns than we should have felt bound to be for ourselves. Assuredly, England is her own mistress; we have no pretension to interfere in the alnico of her Ministers; we have no veto to give against airy of her statesmen: that serto shelters given herself, but with an eye to France." "And nevertheless, the Englisk who are wise people, who hold to their independence and their honour as moth as any nation in the world, do not think themselves humiliated. If the same Hung were to happen in our country—if the same reason caused the dismissal of a Minister, what cries would not the Opposition throw out! With what rage would it not sing the Marseillaise--‘ Allons, enfans de la patrie !' or Jamais en France, jamais rAnglais ne regnera: " This last sentence is very true ; but the Journal des Debats is mistaken in imputing the Russell miscarriage to mere deference for France. Not more so, however, than English journalists ; who affect to deprecate the regulation of our Government appoint- ments by the jealousies andpersonal antipathies of a foreign power. The objection to Lord -Palmerston was, not that he was disliked by the French and by Louis Philippe, but that he was a signal of hostility to many nations, and especially to America as well as France ; that, in spite of his cleverness, he did not really manage affairs well, but only managed to' embroil this country in endless negotiations, ever receding from their professed objects and advancing towards war; that his past administration—and this was the point on which Lord Grey stood—caused his ap- pointment to be viewed with apprehension by many in England.
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